During his big emotional climate speech this week, President Ovbama said:

“I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.”

But for some who study climate change the only shame is this: Obama’s plan does not go nearly far enough. It’s meek and dangerously self-congratulatory, sapping the movement of urgency while doing almost nothing to maintain the future habitability of the earth.

“The actions are practically worthless,” said James Hansen, a climate researcher who headed NASA’s Goddard’s Institute for Space Studies for over 30 years and first warned congress of global warming in 1988. “They do nothing to attack the fundamental problem.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he wrote, when asked if the plan would make continued climate activism unnecessary. Obama’s plan, and for that matter the proposed plan Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, he continued, “is like the fellow who walks to work instead of driving, and thinks he is saving the world.”

Hansen suggested a gradually rising fee for fossil fuel extraction, collected at the port of entry or, in domestic cases, the place where the material actually comes out of the ground.“As long as fossil fuels are allowed to (appear to be) the cheapest energy, someone will burn them,” he wrote in an email to msnbc. “It is not so much a matter of how far you go. It is a matter of whether you are going in the right direction.”

The right direction is away from a global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. If that grim milestone is reached the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that irreversible damage to society would be the likely result.

In Copenhagen in 2009, world leaders agreed to work together to keep global temperatures below that mark. In Paris this coming November and December, climate ministers will gather again in hopes of negotiating a new agreement, one that puts the world on a path for less than 2 degrees of warming.

…

The White House is reviewing the criticisms and told msnbc that it would respond shortly.

““I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.”

Translation: I want my grandchildren to enjoy elite uber-rich values of private jets to exotic vacation locales, filled with yachts and chalets. The little people and unwashed masses in the 3rd World cannot be allowed to use up all that hydrocarbon my grandchildren will require for an oppulent lifestyle, one that I and Tom Steyer and our Watermelon elitist pals enjoy today.

Let’s do a mind experiment.
The Big O’s daughters are teenagers, roughly [can’t be bothered to Wiki their actual ages].
in fifteen years time, they will – reasonably – have children of their own.
Another decade, and O’s grandkids will be – ish – teenagers.
But if the fathers of the Big O’s grandkids – and so spouses of the daughters – are Iranian, there may be some restrictions on swimming for religious reasons; possibly more so – if the grandkids are also grand daughters.
But if – mind experiment – the fathers of the Big O’s grandkids are similarly connected military-politico-economy scions – Gateses, perhaps, or Kennedys, possibly even Gores – then I think they will be able to jet to Hawai’i [Airbus’s new SST (another mind experiment?) will do that in a couple of hours from anywhere in the ConUS, and I assume they’ll have their own personal planes], swim, surf, and return in a day.

It’s bad enough that a PUSA would make such an ignorant statement. But considering that this PUSA spent a good deal of his time in Hawai’i, this has to rank as one of the most inexplicable statements ever uttered by someone in his position.

John Boles. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why Obama’s grandchildren would not be able to swim in Hawaii, and you have hit on one of the logical possibilities. Still, it should be possible to get there on a sailing vessel, just as they did originally. What a perfectly ridiculous example for a President to use.

Journalists never ask a question unless they know what the answer will be. That’s how they create a narrative to explain complex issues in bite-sized chunks.
The questions aren’t meant to find the truth. They are a means of relaying a version of the truth.

I remember when I was a kid, and listening to politicians.
I would listen to the questions asked of them, then listen to their answers, then look to the faces of any adults in the room I was in…and was amazed that they seemed not to notice that the answers did not actually answer the question…EVER!
That and that the entire manner of their speaking was completely slippery and non-informative.
They were talking…a LOT…but not saying anything!
But no one seemed to notice, except me!

Eventually I heard someone address this and other perplexing mysteries of the adult world:

It is a good attorney who never ask a question unless they know the answer. Journalists ask all sorts of questions they don’t have a clue about what the answer will be. Hell, a lot of them have trouble asking any type of intelligent question, whether the answer is known before hand or not.

The poll is typical of politics today and the lack of true democracy. People often say that if you don’t like something you can vote them out but what do you do when they are all the same. All the parties in parliament voted in favour of the UK Climate Change Act in 2008 with only 3 honourable MPs who voted against it. Not voting at least reduces their legitimacy if their support is low.

Gerry, England.
Write, E-Mail, the sod that if he/she does not oppose these types of wasteful actions you will vote against him/her. It does not matter what their Opponent states, make it clear that It will cost them their job. Then inform their replacement exactly how they came to sit in their chair and what they must do and not do so as to continue enjoying its comforts.
Make it clear who is buttering the bread. It is after all you the voter. Make it clear that Green money is the kiss of death. Also make clear that if they support the Greens and AGW in any way, they will never ever get your vote. AND mean it.
I know this sounds difficult, impossible, but then how do you think the Greens came to control your(and my) governments.
If enough do this, you (and I)will have our governments back.

MtM
“If enough do this, you (and I)will have our governments back. ”
Well – ish.
Ish-ish
A bit more than we do now – say up to 0.3%, up all the way from 0.22% – or some other meaningless and made-up pair of decimal fractions.
[Whoo-hoo – Channelling the Mann?]

“If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal,” often attributed to Emma Goldman.
That’s going too far.
But all we’ve done in the UK is change the rascals – and a few who really want to make a difference – who sit on the Government side in the House of Commons.
[And they’ve fouled up the House of Lords . . . .]

Auto – rather cynical after fifty years (I supported a Liberal in 1964 – but couldn’t vote until the ’74 election which saw the return of the Twister Wilson, he of more faces than the Town Hall Clock) of watching politics – and its hand-maidens – in this “Green and Pleasant Land”.
Glad the poet isn’t here to see it now.

Easy to think of the solution, nearly impossible to put in practice.
(These days anyway, what with votes bought and paid for by the lavish dowry of borrowed money being showered on various factions of the populace.).

The solution?
Vote out every single incumbent…and do it for every election…for a few cycles. Then insist that they do what they say they will do when running and getting elected, and let those that follow through remain…the rest hit the revolving door…out they go.
That would get results… I guarantee it.
As long as thieving liars and lying thieves are re-elected time after time, nothing can possibly be expected to change.
As lo g as cronyism and shady dealing are allowed to be the norm among our elected officials, why would they change one single freakin’ thing?

Somewhere we need the people to have some control over constituency sizes, shapes, borders and that.
While the politicos get to approve constituency margins, elections will continue to be decided in twenty per cent of constituencies, where the other eighty per cent will return the appropriate donkey, cactus or pile of sharp sand – provided it wears the right-coloured rosette.

An exceptionally egregious member might revulse enough to get the boot – but even that would be in the next ten or fifteen per cent close to the marginal twenty per cent.

Out in the boonies, where they weigh the votes, being caught in bed with a lobbyist, your suitcase full of her/his 500 Euro notes, their underage German Shepherd dog, rubber wear, and a kilo of cocaine would barely dent your majority.

See – for example – FIFA where Blatter was elected- yet again – with the world talking about endemic corruption in FIFA on his watch.
I don’t think he was corrupt.
May he have been complicit – maybe.
Ahhhh – but his terms and conditions meant that he had no need to be corrupt.
And make of that what you will. And – like me – dream of a job that remunerates so fabulously!

Today, given the power of the computer, it would be possible to allocate voters to a notional constituency by random number generation.
But if there is no continuity, seeking to get the rascals to – try to – do what they promised – on pain of not voting for them next time – becomes utterly null and void.

A page from the Green “play-book” will have to be used; that is to be an international party-organization. Transcending our own parties and politics. Remember all that money buys is air time and paper print. The only vote that can be bought is the one a citizen sells.
Can it be done. Yes the Greens did it. It took time and commitment. Here in the States the Tea party has had some success. Steal a page from them.
michael

what poll – normally a poll at least gives you a yes or no – this one gives a yes and a not yes enough!! how long before the results of the poll show that 100% of respondents agree, even though a lot will probably think they are answering ‘no’ because its the first word of the devious second question

I find it strange that they criticise Obama now for not doing enough but didn’t seem too fussed when he reached agreement with China to do nothing for the next 15 years. How you can criticise western countries for crippling their economies whilst the biggest emitters are free to do nothing. Hansen is totally ingenuous .

Because it not about what you are for but what you are against, so China gets a free ‘do not go to jail’ card from the watermelons. Which tells us, as if they did not already ready know, that the politics is the main driving force behind much of CAGW not science .

They knew what China would say to any attempt at arm twisting, so they declared a unilateral freeze on our side only, and hailed it as a great victory to have this historic agreement with China.
Knowing that the base he is pandering to consists of large numbers of incredibly low-information numbskull knuckleheads… people to whom facts mean less than nothing…even if they took the time to review any facts…which they do not.
Clear now?
Hint: Do not try to make sense of the half-witted shenanigans and galling jackassery of warmista politicians, or any other warmistas for that matter.

I don’t understand the disappointment in President Obama. Before election, he said “this will mark the moment when the seas stopped their rise, and globe began to cool.” Well, he was right. We realize now that that was about halfway into ‘the pause’. And since that point we’ve had an expedition of global warming alarmists frozen in ice. Thanks Obama!

What a self aggrandizing pompous person, so full of himself that he hasn’t taken time to check his own work result from the 1988 Senate forecast. If he could only turn himself into a lump of coal so as to claim a useful purpose in life.

While what Hansen believes may be way out there, the guy is a real scientist and also held the responsibility of being an agency head. Nye is what? A tv personality who let the exposure go to his head and think he was some sort of expert.

That you believe Hansen’s silly stuff? That you don’t believe Hansen’s silly stuff but don’t think anybody ought to call him out on it? Good grief…maybe there’s a correlation between the number of times Hansen says silly stuff and the number of time it’s discussed on WUWT…I could go on but I doubt I’m helping you.

Because Hansen was the head of a large portion of NASA for several decades, and as such has credibility with certain brands of idiot. Those credentials are better than actual facts to this crowd, you see…because such authority cannot be wrong, and to suggest otherwise is to engage in loony conspiracy mind-freak stuff.
And, ore to the point, Hansen has somehow become deluded in such a way that he sees death wherever there is life, disaster where there is success, truth in a cesspool full of lies, boiling oceans of acid where pleasantly warm to freezing cold seas exist and, basically, escalating turmoil and doom around every happy corner of a same-a-it-ever-was world brimming with hope and happiness.
AND…..He has never seen a pot of yummy soup he did not need to excrete himself into.

Just looked up the phone page for GISS, about 150 names. Far away from a major portion of NASA. Hanson certainly had credibility from being its head, but many people in NASA have as much or more power.

I suppose when any of those many make climate news, we will talk about them here as well.
Who can name, just from memory, not looking it up, five other people at NASA who hold top positions in the bureaucracy?
Name even one currently at NASA, who is not a Hansen crony, who is well known by name and position?

BTW, how is that Mars thing shaping up?
When is the USA’s new launch vehicle getting a test, or getting anything except cancelled?
Why is NASA even in this business, when we have NOAA?
Why is NASA now in charge of climate and Islamic relations?
When did it become impossible to believe that, nearly as I can discern, nothing that government does makes even a tiny bit of sense?

Total energy demand is targeted to be 820 quadrillion btu’s by 2040 based on our current consumption now of 160,000 TWh’s. What exactly does Hansen suggest we replace this with? As usual with all climate freaks they endlessly pontification about what we shouldn’t and fantasise about what might happen if we don’t stop but never quantify exactly what the options are and how long it would take to put them in place and in a finite world don’t even begin to estimate the volume of resources needed to enable the process. Jeremy Clarkson said in one Top Gear episode that having tested a battery powered SLS at least when the oil runs out we can still drive fast cars, wrong. When the oil runs out exactly how do you move billions of tons of iron ore from Brazil or Australia to anywhere else across the planet or even dig it out of the ground. Hansen’s mawkish addle brained fantasising beggars belief.

I have changed my tactics when debating with climate alarmists. Of course, first I have to get back the incessant ad hominem attacks that they use as a substitute for civil dialogue. After that, instead to trying to present evidence about what is actually happening in terms of average global temperatures etc. and comparing this to the IPCC’s projections, I focus on the economic and social consequences of doing what the alarmists recommend. Hansen’s comment about Obama is right to the extent that what Hansen and the IPCC are advocating is the complete elimination of fossil fuel use within 85 years, and the substantial elimination of fossil fuel use (i.e. 70% below 2010 levels) in the industrialized countries by 2050, just 35 years away. Unless one makes heroic assumptions about the pace at which the transportation sector can be completely electrified and the pace of scientific discovery of new non-carbon technologies and their lightning-like dissemination in the economy, Hansen is basically recommending a return to the world of the 18th century. It sounds quite romantic to the environmentalists, but of course it means transportation by horses on land and by sailing vessels on sea, lighting by candles (would kerosene lamps be permitted in a zero carbon world?) and several other deprivations from the lack of modern energy services as we know them. As the environmentalists despise nuclear energy and would ban it as a generating option in their carbon free world, the supply of electricity would be dependent on wind and solar energy which, being intermittent sources, would offer only limited availability for uses that the government, in a very non-18th century way, would undoubtedly step in to regulate. I live in a cold country where the winters are long and dark. The non-fossil fuel world does not seem so romantic to me.

Two degrees warmer is a “grim milestone”?
Where the heck are they even coming from with that garbage?
Large portions of our planet are frozen wastelands, even in summer, and during winter, most of the surface of our planet has conditions cold enough to kill an unprotected person very quickly…minutes to maybe a few hours. A couple of days with warm clothing but no shelter.
And in these places, people must subsist on stored (Counting hunted animals as “stored food”.) or transported food, because it is impossible to grow food when the temperature is that cold.
But two degrees will kill…who?
That is the part no one explains.
These days, people flock to the hottest climates they can find.
Sportsmen and women travel to harsh and extreme deserts to engage in days long ultra-marathon running races. The only equipment needed to survive in these places is whatever one needs to store and drink water.
Go to the South Pole at the warmest time of year, and you better leave in a hurry…if you even survive to get there. When they find your corpse, it will be colder than a block of dry ice.

On another rant thread, what is this malarkey about not being able to swim in Hawaii?
Why not?
It will be too hot in the water?
Or it will be underwater?
Both notions are so stupid a ten year old knows enough to debunk them.
We are being led by people who are either detached from reality, or have so few scruples that the truth is like a foreign language to them.

Latest: World Governments to include banning dangerous ‘vinegar’ on Paris agenda, AND those toxic fumes you get when frying scotch bonnet chillies, and, oh, you know, that strange gas that bubbles up from carbonated drinks, and, while we’re at it, PEELING ONIONS causes severe eye irritation and can lead to blindness – WHICH KILLS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE EVERY DAY. And as for that propellant used in fire extinguishers, well . . . .

We’re all doomed. Children won’t know what vinegar is. Vinegar will just become a thing of the past.

Whenever I see a declaration that 2C more means death and destruction I like to check the current day’s recorded range of temperature. In the preceding 24hrs to 0400UTC today 8 August Kuwait tops the poll at +49.8C and Plateau Station Antarctica a chilly -79.2C. It’s probably not as cold as that at the summit of Mt Everest.

David, I expect the global average temperature to be tolerable and pleasant to most living organisms. Say around 24 degrees centigrade. However, I’ll apparently die if it gets to 26 degrees centigrade.

“I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.”
OK, so his grandkids in Future Warmmy World will not be able to swim in Hawai’i because the oceans will be too acid their nail polish will corrode. And they won’t be able to see a glacier because they all will have melted into the acid seas. But why in the HECK won’t they be able to climb a mountain??? For idiotic hyperbole this sets a new bar.
“I regret that if we do nothing about carbon dioxide my grandchildren will not be able to pick their toes in Poughkeepsie.” There, I fixed it for ya.

Total energy demand is targeted to be 820 quadrillion btu’s by 2040 based on our current consumption now of 160,000 TWh’s. What exactly does Hansen suggest we replace this with? As usual with all climate freaks they endlessly pontification about what we shouldn’t and fantasise about what might happen if we don’t stop but never quantify exactly what the options are and how long it would take to put them in place and in a finite world don’t even begin to estimate the volume of resources needed to enable the process. Jeremy Clarkson said in one Top Gear episode that having tested a battery powered SLS at least when the oil runs out we can still drive fast cars, wrong. When the oil runs out exactly how do you move billions of tons of iron ore from Brazil or Australia to anywhere else across the planet or even dig it out of the ground. Hansen’s mawkish addle brained fantasising beggars belief

So in Obama-world you have to climb mountains to see a glacier?
Must be the same one with a 57 state America.
Actually it is fun to see Hansen badmouth the Zero, especially when he is right, Nothing will be done, at vast expense to the taxpayer and destruction of private industry.

Which of the following statements concerning Obama’s ‘clean’ climate power plan do you support?

1. There is no CAGW problem to solve, so why is the Obama administration forcing the US to spend trillions of dollar on green energy scams that do not work (significantly reduce CO2 emissions.) It is a fact that commercial greenhouses inject CO2 to increase yield and to reduce growing times. CO2 is a gas that is essential for life on this planet, not a poison. There has been more than 18 years without warming.

2. The US has run out of money to spend on everything and hence there is no money to waste on green scams that do not work. Where is the money going to come from to waste on green scams that do not work?

3. We have an idiotic government that is encouraging our scientific agencies to manipulate temperature data and to ignore analysis that supports the assertion there is no CAGW problem to solve, to justify forced spending on idiotic green scams that do not work.

Recently Bill Gates explained in an interview with the Financial Times why current renewables are dead-end technologies. They are unreliable. Battery storage is inadequate. Wind and solar output depends on the weather. The cost of decarbonization using today’s technology (William: Solar and wind power rather than nuclear) is “beyond astronomical,” Mr. Gates concluded.

The key problem appears to be that the cost of manufacturing the components of the renewable power facilities is far too close to the total recoverable energy – the facilities never, or just barely, produce enough energy to balance the budget of what was consumed in their construction. This leads to a runaway cycle of constructing more and more renewable plants simply to produce the energy required to manufacture and maintain renewable energy plants – an obvious practical absurdity.

A research effort by Google corporation to make renewable energy viable has been a complete failure, according to the scientists who led the programme. After 4 years of effort, their conclusion is that renewable energy “simply won’t work”.

I would likely support #’s 1 & 3.
#2 seems a little too contrived. So far anyway, the borrowing spigot is still open.
So to say we have run out of money is sort of meaningless.
Not that all the debt is unimportant…I hate it.

Here is a question I would liked asked at a political debate: “In light of the fact that the satellite recored show that the globe has not warmed for 18+ years, what percentage of the nation’s GDP should we sacrificed attempting to reduce our CO2 emissions below the current 1.5% of the global total.” 1.5% is Canada’s number, insert your own (US=16%, UK=1.5%, Australia=1.1%…)

He’s not very optimistic, is he? If the prophesy comes to pass, and the oceans rise to inundate the land, then his grandchildren will do nothing but swim in what remains of Hawaii. He should be more concerned about the golf course, than the swimming pool.

Wow! I actually agree with James Hansen about something! I would have bet a substantial amount as late as this morning that this would never happen!

But then, even a broken clock lying on the ground smashed to pieces is right twice a day, right?

Well, not so much. I suspect that we agree that it is worthless, but disagree pretty strongly about why it is worthless.

However, I’m tickled pink that we agree, because it illustrates perfectly the enormous disconnect between measures sufficiently draconian to (according to Hansen) matter (which would bring down civilization now, why bother waiting until 2100) and the pissing-into-a-category-five-hurricane waste of time and money that Obama is attempting to foist onto the country by royal — I mean “executive” — fiat, the even more expensive waste of time and money being proposed for the country in a slightly more democratic way by Hillary Clinton that still risks creating a global depression and which, if we believe the models and “projections” of dire climate doom, won’t even substantially delay the disaster that Hansen expects/models/projects.

In order to delay Hansen’s disaster, we have to stop using CO_2 cold turkey, because we haven’t even realized the lagged warming due to the CO_2 we’ve already got, because sooner or later powerful positive feedbacks will kick in, because we’ve already altered the climate to the point where Greenland and Antarctica will melt and the oceans will boil and sea levels will rise by five meters if we go any higher.

Here’s a fun fact. The Duke Marine Lab shares Pivers Island with NOAA. You’d think NOAA and Duke would be all about conservation of electrical energy — after all, NOAA is one of the groups that predict climate disaster and are willing to bend data in ways that are statistically extremely unlikely to be free from bias in order to reinforce confidence in that prediction. Yet NOAA is the brightest single object in my field of view across to the island at night. It is all lit up outside. It is blasting energy out into the night, all night long, when the only things there to see it are dolphins in the bay and people like me sitting out on their back deck. Duke (for liability reasons) is in the process of installing street lights all over their end of the island, so I can look forward to it being all lit up by next summer.

If NOAA, or the federal government, even thought about taking their own warnings seriously, one of the first and easiest ways to save both money and energy would be to turn off the lights at night! Street lights — off. Neon signage — off. Billboards — off. Stop blasting photons out to space when nobody is there to see (or can carry their own light with them if they are). Pivers Island is already isolated by NOAA by water on all sides and a big, solid, gate. This isn’t about preventing crime — cameras take your picture every time you drive over the bridge as it is, and there are 24 hour guards that walk the island. It is pure, wasteful, show.

Hansen, at least, is honest in his conviction that it is all about saving the world. That’s why he has been the perfect catspaw for those seeking to make money from CAGW/CACC.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he wrote, when asked if the plan would make continued climate activism unnecessary.

Ah, so that’s the reason. Hansen will never admit that continued climate activism is unnecessary, any more than community organizers will ever admit that their activism is no longer necessary. It’s a way of life to some people, so the underlying problem can never be solved. Solving it would end their purpose for being.

Louis,
Yes.
Just like poverty statistics.
If household income is below some wholly arbitrary figure [in the UK, I think it’s 60%, but not at all sure) of mean [not mode, nor median – but mean] household income – you’re in poverty.
If everyone – over twenty years – becomes, uniformly, 100% richer, there is still that tail of povertands, if you like, under 60% of the new doubled mean income.
And yet, if a couple of billionaires, with huge annual incomes, leave the UK – for tax reasons, or they’re persecuted by a Russian president [who may not be the richest individual on the planet], or they like sunrises in Botswana more, all of a sudden – then mean household income drops, and hundred or thousands are – miraculously – taken out of poverty.

Without an actual extra penny income.
Shazzam.

The wonderful world of he leftist econo-dirge.

So – by definition – continued persecution of wealth-makers is necessary.

So sad – but as noted the lo-info folk can’t see this much of the time.

Here is Indur Goklany’s summary in response to the Pope’s nonsense. In fact human well being has never been higher and deaths from extreme events have dropped by 97% since 1920. And here is the link to his full report.

Summary
This paper is a commentary on the opening four sentences of the pontifical academies’
joint declaration, Climate Change and the Common Good: A Statement of The Problem
and the Demand for Transformative Solutions, echoes of which resonate in the recent
papal encyclical. The paper finds that the premise behind the academies’ call for deep
decarbonization and a rapid reduction in fossil-fuel use is fundamentally flawed.
The academies claim that fossil-fuel use has reduced theworld’s sustainability and
resilience. But despite record human numbers and carbon-dioxide emissions, human
wellbeing has never been higher, by virtually any measure whether climate-sensitive
or not. The average person has never lived longer or been healthier or wealthier. Living
standards are at their highest ever; poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and mortality
from vector-borne diseases and extreme events are at record lows. There is no indication
that these trends are being reversed.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution virtually all of humanity’s basic needs – food,
fibre, fuel, energy, materials – were met by the rest of nature. Fossil-fuel technologies
and associated economic development increased the terrestrial biosphere’s natural
productivity to provide these basic needs, shifted humanity’s demand for energy
away from biomass and animal power, and increased its reliance on man-made
fibres and materials. Consequently, the share of humanity’s demand for life’s basic
necessities filled by the rest of nature has never been smaller despite exploding demand.
Also, because of carbon-dioxide fertilization, nitrogen deposition, and possibly
a more equable climate, all caused by fossil-fuel use, the terrestrial biosphere’s
productivity now exceeds pre-industrial levels. This allows the biosphere to sustain
larger biomass.
Thus greater fossil-fuel use has been accompanied by advances in both human
wellbeing and terrestrial biosphere’s ability to sustain biomass. That is, our reliance on
fossil fuels has increased the world’s sustainability and resilience. Another result has
been that conversion of wild land to farmland has almost peakedworldwide, allowing
some societies to reserve land for conservation.
Also contrary to the academies’ claims, inequality, which is secondary to poverty,
hunger, and malnutrition as indicators of wellbeing, has shrunk among the world’s
population in recent decades. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence for their claim
that agriculture is ‘doubtless causing’ hundreds of thousands if not millions of extinctions.
The academies’ assertion that fossil-fuel use poses existential risks for the poor
and future generations must necessarily rest on models of future impacts of climate
change. But impact models use climate models that overestimate global warming
two- to four-fold. Moreover, neither climate nor impact models have been validated
using external data, climate models often contradict each other regarding the direction
of precipitation change at regional and local scales, and the impact models do
not fully account for the increased adaptive capacity of future generations, who will
be wealthier and technologically-more sophisticated than we are.
The academies’ ‘transformative solutions’ are based on a delusion that economic
alternatives to cheap fossil fuels are widely available, a notion belied by the government
mandates and subsidies that prop up these alternative energy sources. These
purported solutions would therefore be counterproductive for both humanity and
the rest of nature. They would slow the ongoing broad advance in human wellbeing,
retard poverty reduction, and reduce the ability to adapt and cope with adversity in
general and climate change in particular, especially harming the poor. They would
also reduce the future productivity of the terrestrial biosphere, increasing pressure
on species and ecosystems.
In exchange for reducing both humanity and the rest of nature’s sustainability and
resilience, the academies would solve future problems that may not even exist or, if
they do, might be more easily solved by future generations who should be richer,
both economically and technologically. Essentially, these policies would give up real
gains inhumanand environmentalwellbeing to solve hypothetical problems forecast
by models which, if they have a track record, is for inaccuracy.
The academies are right that climate change is a moral and ethical issue. Unfortunately,
they are on its wrong side. Apparently their moral compass is broken.

“…is like the fellow who walks to work instead of driving, and thinks he is saving the world.” So Mr Hansen, would he do more to save the world if he committed suicide? Why is it that the environmentalists believe every one else needs to do something and to them “we” really means “you”?

Hansen talks about increasing the fees on Fossil Fuels as a way to reduce emissions. Double, no triple the price of petrol/gasoline/diesel/jet fuel I say! That will be a good way to discourage use. Then watch the average Joe/Jane on the street go bat crap crazy.

“Do you support Pres Obama?
1. Yes, he’s dreamy and the greatest president ever plus he won the Nobel Prize and made up with Iran.”
2. No, it’s a tragedy that the Constitution only allows him 2 terms.”

“The right direction is away from a global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. If that grim milestone is reached the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that irreversible damage to society would be the likely result.”
Luddite:
“The Luddites were 19th-century English textile workers (or self-employed weavers who feared the end of their trade) who protested against newly developed labour-economizing technologies, primarily between 1811 and 1816. The stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms introduced during the Industrial Revolution threatened to replace them with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
“The name evolved into the imaginary General Ludd or King Ludd, a figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.”
Does Hansen imagines he lives in Sherwood Forest?
Can anyone actually know what precisely global temperature were pre-industrial.
We have CET:http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
But it only goes back to about 1760 and it’s accurate measurement of central England.
Wiki, Industrial Revolution:
“The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

So is it the River Thames frost fairs which old Jimmy is pining for?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
Why does someone who imagines he is scientist refer to pre-industrial. temperature.
There are reconstruction of past temperatures, eg:https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/16/historic-variations-in-temperature-number-four-the-hockey-stick/
And perhaps, Dr Hansen refering to the discredited Mann Hockey Stick or or referring to Hubert Lamb, but pre-industrial merely means before the Industrial Revolution, so quite vague- it could back to last glacial period.
the beginning of the global warming religion began with the world a having average temperature of about 15 C. Today there is no precise temperature given, or it’s more than 14 and less than 16 C or about 15 C. But over the last hundred years global temperature have rise about .8 C +/- 2 C . And since the time before any precise measurement [and tree or other proxies are not precise] or prior
to 1760 it many risen another 1 C [or more] from the coldest times of the frost fairs.
So we could already to near his idea of the 2 C of warming, or maybe something like .5 C of additional warming reaches his fantastic limit.
So zero, ,.5, or perhaps 1 or 1.2 C of additional warming. Though since it’s anytime prior to 1760 AD,
perhaps he referring the warmest period of our current interglacial period, which could have been 1 to 2 C warmer than the present global temperature.

If Hansen is certain that Obama’s plan is worthless, and that the alternative is catastrophe, with only a few places on earth being able to support human life in the near future…

Has Hansen put his money and the safety of his family where his mouth is?

Has he bought property in Switzerland? Or Alaska? Or in Canada’s far north? What has he done to protect the lives of his children and grandchildren? Anything? Anything at all? For that matter, have any of the alarmist scientists done anything of the sort?

C’mon, there must be readers on this blog from Tuktoyuktuk or Whitehorse or other future tropical paradises with knowledge of the local real estate market. Is real estate sky rocketing due to an influx of thousands of climate scientists buying safety for themselves and their families? I’m guessing not, but ya never know until ya ask…. (and even then maybe not).

“Has Hansen put his money and the safety of his family where his mouth is?”
I think Hansen wants to live close to all the money he made off his scam, so I would guess that’s why he said Switzerland is safe from climate disaster.

But if you think there is going to be massive amounts of warming, you probably wouldn’t want to live near glaciers, but if want to keep yourself safe from the consequences of all the social harm you have inflicted, Switzerland has good track record of doing this.

No, it is James Hansen’s claims that are “practically worthless” and Obama who is Hansen’s puppet, and this is why …

Based on the mean flux of radiation …

(a) The effective temperature of the Sun’s radiation reaching the surface of Earth is about -40°C. Yes, minus 40.

(b) The effective temperature of the Sun’s radiation reaching the surface of Venus is about -140°C

(c) The effective temperature of all the radiation from Earth’s atmosphere to its surface is about 3°C.

Because these planets are rotating spheres, the actual mean temperature that any of the above radiation could achieve is a few degrees colder than would be achieved with uniform orthogonal flux striking a flat non-reflecting surface. The reason for this relates to the fact that the achieved temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. So, because the flux varies with the angle of incidence, flux that is above the mean achieves only a relatively small increase in temperature above that achieved by the mean flux.

From this it is obvious that the mean temperatures of the surfaces of Earth and Venus are not achieved by direct radiation into those surfaces. Some relatively small regions on Earth may rise in temperature due to direct solar radiation, but overall, the observed global mean temperature cannot be explained by solar radiation. Atmospheric radiation would also not keep the mean temperature above freezing point (0°C) either.

Hence we need to consider a totally different paradigm (based on entropy maximization and the laws of thermodynamics) which can and does explain the actual observed temperatures, not only for Earth and Venus, but for all planets and even the regions below any solid surface. Correct physics produces correct results that agree with data from the real Solar System.

The breakthrough has come in this 21st Century and the science stands up to the test, being supported by copious evidence from planetary data, studies and experiments such as outlined at http://climate-change-theory.com so you will learn what is really happening if you read and study such.

No, it is James Hansen’s claims that are “practically worthless” and Obama who is Hansen’s puppet, and this is why …

Based on the mean flux of radiation …

(a) The effective temperature of the Sun’s radiation reaching the surface of Earth is about -40°C. Yes, minus 40.

(b) The effective temperature of the Sun’s radiation reaching the surface of Venus is about -140°C

(c) The effective temperature of all the radiation from Earth’s atmosphere to its surface is about 3°C.

Because these planets are rotating spheres, the actual mean temperature that any of the above radiation could achieve is a few degrees colder than would be achieved with uniform orthogonal flux striking a flat non-reflecting surface. The reason for this relates to the fact that the achieved temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. So, because the flux varies with the angle of incidence, flux that is above the mean achieves only a relatively small increase in temperature above that achieved by the mean flux.

From this it is obvious that the mean temperatures of the surfaces of Earth and Venus are not achieved by direct radiation into those surfaces. Some relatively small regions on Earth may rise in temperature due to direct solar radiation, but overall, the observed global mean temperature cannot be explained by solar radiation. Atmospheric radiation would also not keep the mean temperature above freezing point (0°C) either.

Hence we need to consider a totally different paradigm (based on entropy maximization and the laws of thermodynamics) which can and does explain the actual observed temperatures, not only for Earth and Venus, but for all planets and even the regions below any solid surface. Correct physics produces correct results that agree with data from the real Solar System.

The breakthrough has come in this 21st Century and the science stands up to the test, being supported by copious evidence from planetary data, studies and experiments such as outlined in the book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” so you will learn what is really happening if you read and study such.

Hansen, Obama, et al., they’re all in it together, I think. Climate isn’t the issue, control is. They’ve set up the Hansen position to make Obama’s look reasonable, using the Argument to Moderation fallacy — which, of course, most people don’t realize IS a fallacy.

They’ve done this with SO may issues over time, moving the goalposts and using Moral High Ground fallacies that appeal to the immature and those lacking critical thinking skills.

The Clean Power Plan will accomplish nothing at great cost. What the EPA doesn’t tell you is: Full implementation will only reduce the temperature by approximately 0.02 degrees C by 2100 because it is a global problem and countries like India, and China will not depress their economy with a useless and expensive non-solution; this number is as calculated by the EPA assuming that reducing carbon dioxide will solve this non-problem; approximately 97% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is from natural sources like the ocean, and volcanoes which prompts the question, how can the human’s 3% influence the global temperature; there has been no global warming for about 18 years as measured by two satellite systems (NASA,UAH); cheap energy is required to reduce poverty and imposing carbon emission restrictions would encourage poverty; the weather? It’s now been over eight years since a category 3-5 hurricane hit the United States – the longest such period in over a century; Tornadoes are at a multi-decade low; Droughts are no more intense or frequent than since 1900; health (carbon dioxide),even the EPA admits that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, they claim that the danger lies its ability to increase global warming; carbon dioxide is absolutely required for plant life and therefore human/animal life. The states should refuse to implement this outrageous and illegal law.

The Clean Power Plan will accomplish nothing at great cost. Full implementation will only reduce the temperature by approximately 0.02 degrees C by 2100.This number was calculated by the EPA assuming that reducing carbon dioxide will solve this non-problem. Approximately 97% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is from natural sources like the ocean, and volcanoes which prompts the question, how can the human’s 3% influence the global temperature? With carbon dioxide increasing there has been no global warming for about 18 years as measured by two satellite systems (NASA,UAH). cheap energy is required to reduce poverty. the weather? Over eight years since a category 3-5 hurricane hit the United States – longest such period in over a century. Tornadoes are at a multi-decade low. Droughts are no more intense or frequent than since 1900. Health (carbon dioxide),even the EPA admits that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but is absolutely required for plant life and therefore human/animal life. The states should refuse to implement this outrageous and illegal law.

4 Aug: Zerohedge: Tyler Durden: Meet Solyndra 2.0: This US-Taxpayer-Subsidized Spanish “Renewables” Firm Is Collapsing
News that bonds and stocks of Abengoa SA – the Spanish renewable-energy company – plunged after a plan to shore up capital failed to reassure investors that it can stop burning cash is likely to have passed many by. But coming just one day after President Obama unleashed his Clean Power Plan, the fact that the company – that is now facing significant liquidity concerns – received over $230 million in US taxpayer subsidies in 2014 – despite two ongoing federal investigations – may raise an eyebrow or two as images of Solyndra’s government-sponsored farce come to mind… as Diane Feinstein, Ken Salazar, and Bill Richardson – with the help of subsidies and Ex-Im bank loans alledgely exerted their influence to keep this zombie alive…READ ALL PLUS COMMENTShttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/meet-solyndra-20-us-taxpayer-subsidized-spanish-renewables-firm-collapsing

5 Aug: DakotaFinancialNews: Abengoa SA Downgraded by Zacks (ABGB)
Abengoa SA (NASDAQ:ABGB) was downgraded by Zacks from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report issued on Wednesday, Analyst Ratings.Net reports.
According to Zacks, “Abengoa SA is an engineering and clean technology company…The Company’s technology generates electricity from the sun, produces biofuels, desalinates seawater and recycles industrial waste…It also produces a variety of biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel). Abengoa SA is headquartered in Seville, Spain. “…
Abengoa SA has a one year low of $5.77 and a one year high of $30.75…http://www.dakotafinancialnews.com/abengoa-sa-downgraded-by-zacks-abgb/320785/

Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — Iberdrola SA, a Spanish company, will get most of the more than $500 million in economic recovery funds the Obama administration said today it is distributing to U.S. renewable-energy projects.

Bilbao, Spain-based Iberdrola will get $236 million for wind farms in Texas, Oregon and Minnesota and an additional $59 million for a Pennsylvania wind project, U.S. officials said.

Twelve projects in total will get funds, with 59 percent of the money going to Iberdrola’s Penascal project in Texas, the Hay Canyon and Pebble Springs wind farms in Oregon, Locust Ridge II in Pennsylvania and the Morraine II wind farm in Minnesota.

The money is part of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. The entire plan contains about $3 billion that will be given in lieu of tax credits to support about 5,000 biomass, solar, wind and other types of renewable energy production facilities.

“This renewable energy program will spur the manufacture and development of clean energy in urban and rural America,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a written statement.

Obama has set a goal of doubling renewable energy production in three years. He also has said that development of cleaner energy sources would create jobs.

“We are delighted and we are right now putting the stimulus money to use,” said Jan Johnson, a U.S. spokeswoman for Iberdrola.

She said the company plans to spend $6 billion over four years on renewable energy projects in places such as Arizona, Texas, Illinois, North Dakota and Oregon.

84 Turbines

The Penascal wind farm, near Sarita, Texas, the biggest project covered by the grants, is to receive $114 million. It began operating in April, using 84 turbines supplied by Japan’sMitsubishi Corp., and produces 202 megawatts, or enough to power 70,000 South Texas homes, according to an April statement by the company.

The grants will help develop 840 megawatts of capacity, or about 3 percent of total U.S. wind power, said Matt Rogers, an adviser at the Energy Department. Except for $2.7 million of the grants that went to solar projects, all the $502.6 million in grants support wind technologies.

That someone who so clearly needs real psychological help can get press like this speaks more poorly of the media than of James Hansen. At this point, I actually feel sorry for him as he’s pretty clearly suffering from delusions. Only a press so completely devoid of rational thought could have the indecency to let an unwell man continue to make a fool of himself.

I support Hansen’s idea on a tax on Fossil Fuels (but from ships only). Put a huge import tax on tankers bringing in oil from offshore. Imagine how fast that would improve the North American economy. The Middle East oil would still flow, but it would go to Japan, China and India, etc. I don’t know. Just a thought.

“The actions are practically worthless,” said James Hansen, a climate researcher who headed NASA’s Goddard’s Institute for Space Studies for over 30 years and first warned congress of global warming in 1988. “They do nothing to attack the fundamental problems (of the dwindling grant money and as a result, in the future, there will no longer be a source of funds for the tenured fortune tellers such as myself. If a large fee is placed on the extraction or consumption of fuels then there will be an unlimited fund for the study of climate and all of the problems associated with it.)”

He can take the position of head of high climate priests, who will consult their climate models and decide if the world is in balance or if further sacrifices are needed. I presume he will eventually wear an elaborate, feathered headdress in public.

Hansen appears to think he is capable of organizing an economy and specifying options for 300 million people. It takes quite a lot of arrogance to assume such a thing, and even more to think that by doing so you are saving the world. It is a Messianic complex of some sort. I suppose a person could argue that it is a sign of mental illness. Ordinarily we simply ignore such people, or if they seem a danger to themselves and others we have them committed to an institution…unless, their delusions are aligned with the current religious orthodoxy. Radical environmentalism is the current religious orthodoxy. There is no way to get him off the streets.

Well, let’s see… We have the 48 contiguous states, the state of hawaii, the state of Alaska, the state of confusion, the state of alarm, the state of anxiety, the state of unconsciousness, the state of depression, the state of mental health, the state of suspended animation and the state of the union address… I think there’s 58 actually.
Do I need a sarc tag?

James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1941) is an American adjunct professor (meaning no official office nor phone nor e-mail nor insurance policy nor retirement policy not time off policy nor sick days policy nor salary!) in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (this department was inaugurated due to the fact that Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory is the REAL geoscience institute at Columbia University, i.e. an impostor!).

Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology (his research was about the atmosphere of Venus! which failed miserably), his testimony (an act of desperation) on climate change (he never studied that) to congressional committees (money and a ruse to keep the money from NASA flowing into his bi-weekly Federal back account) in 1988 (open the windows and turn off the air conditioners!) that helped raise broad awareness (muddied the waters) of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change (Governmental action to extinct homo sapiens sapiens using tax payer money).

In recent years, Hansen has become a climate activist (hooligan) for action to mitigate the effects of climate change (advocates the extinction of all life within the national boarders of the United States of America especially within NASA Headquarters DC, his arch nemesis for good reason), which on a few occasions has led to his arrest (found naked in a porn movie theater in the “Tender Loin” region of the city of San Francisco while enjoying the money from the American Geophysical Union (membership dues) gave to him by Ms McEntee ($$$), kissy kissy, – a Sanctuary City!).

“I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.”
==================
I’ve heard Hawaii is nice.
I imagine 99% of Americans have never been there.
About the same percentage that have seen a glacier.

Some of us work for a living, the trips to Hawaii and Alaska aren’t aboard Air Force 1.
You are a product of the Chicago machine, nothing more.
Any time you want to start acting like a President ?
It’s almost too late.

Been to Hawaii once. While in the military. Been to a glacier once. While in the military. The glacier was in Alaska and was the emptiest, deadest, weirdest place I have ever been to. Never want to go to another one. I wish Obama’s future grandkids all the best with their Hawaii trips and glacier-viewing.

If James Hanesn currently lives in Whitehorse Yukon, Winisk, Ontario or even Caribou, Maine, then he believes what he is saying. If he still lives in NYC, probably not. If he now lives south of the Mason-Dixon line, he’s announcing himself to be a fraud artist. So, where does he live? Has global warming scared Christiana Figueres so much that she has moved from Costa Rica to Iceland?

Al Gore moved from Tennessee to Santa Barbara. Why not Prince Rupert, BC?

Global warming doesn’t seem to have any influence upon these people’s decisions about where they choose to live. They are demonstrating, “global warming isn’t affecting me.”

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than serious ignorance and conscientious stupidity”
Martin Luther King Jr.

“….Pseudo-science and socialism,
Obama and his tricks;
Combining fear and ignorance,
It’s such a potent mix.
A big enough lie told often enough,
How many are being deceived?
And his incredulous rants on climate,
By how many are being believed?…”

I wonder how Mr. Hansen lives his life. Has he gone green in any significant way? Eschew airline travel, mass transit where available and has he devoted the majority of whatever salary he acquires and from what source?

If not so much then I’ll politely ignore his inflammatory and baseless claims especially while the agency he used to work for feels it necessary to falsify temperature data to prove something that is untrue.

And that the models he bases his supposed beliefs on are inaccurate and unusable.

You already know the answer to that question , Hansen like other green prophets such as St Gore firmly believe in their right to lecture others on what they should not do, while doing the very same things themselves.

James Hansen has already predicted that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted” then CO2 concentrations need to be limited to 350ppm.

The best antidote to Hansenitis is to realise that there are independent sources of climate data that owe nothing to the US and its clique of scientists with narrowly focussed science objectives and the disturbing suggestion of political influence.
One possible source , from a nation with remarkable scientific skills and an advanced manufacturing technology that, in some areas , appears to exceeds that of the US , is of course China.
The National Space Science Centre (Chinese Academy of sciences) has an ambitious programme of space and remote sensing work , using its capable and independent satellite capability :

Some of the research has been written up , much of it is to do with space weather , but some with climate , relevant to discussions here:
An example , and I cannot judge its value is given below (part of the abstract minus Figs which did not copy)

Global warming, namely the unequivocal and continuing rise in Earth’s climate, is one of the hottest and most debatable issue at the present time. As a scientific intergovernmental and international body under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once claimed that the release of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases contributed to as much as 90% or even higher of the observed increase in the global average temperature in the past 50 years. However, worldwide scientists are still skeptical and debate on the possible explanation of the global warming never ends. Research shows that the IPCC’s model tends to underestimate the impact of natural factors on the climate change, while overestimate that of the human activities.

As a matter of fact, solar activity is an important ingredient of natural driving forces of climate. A recent study done by space physicists at the State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, the National Space Science Center (NSSC) have demonstrated the high correlations between solar activity and the Earth’s averaged surface temperature during centuries. The result will to a large extend provide a new clue to reveal the cause of global warming in recent years.

Supported by NSSC’s “Five Key Cultivation Directions” Fund, Dr. ZHAO Xinhua and Dr. FENG Xueshang combined the measured data with those reconstructed to disclose the periodicities of solar activity during centuries and their correlations with the Earth’s temperature based on the wavelet analysis technique and cross correlation method. Their results demonstrate that solar activity and the Earth’s temperature have significant resonance cycles, and the Earth’s temperature has periodic variations similar to those of the solar activity (Figure 1).

The study also implies that the “modern maximum” of solar activity agrees well with the global warming of the Earth during the past century. A significant correlation between them can be found (Figure 2). Especially, the correlation between the solar activity and the ocean temperature is higher than the correlation between the solar activity and the land temperature. These results, as pointed out by a peer reviewer, “provide a possible explanation for the global warming”.

Their work, entitled Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations was published on CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN (In Chinese) 2014 No.14. It was reported by the global source for science news, EurekAlert!, both in Chinese and in English entitledHas solar activity influence on the Earth’s global warming? on June 3 and June 4, 2014, respectively.”

That’s a whole new scenario: In a few years we will be on the earth is not about all grilled because of climate change but have to get dressed properly warm. At least mathematics professor and doctor of astrophysics Valentina Zharkova from the Northumbria University looks a little ice age to come down to earth. In addition, she reported now at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales. My new model for the calculation of irregularities in 11-year solar cycle says a drop in solar activity during the years 2030 to 2040 preceded by up to 60 percent. This phenomenon was most recently in the mini-ice age from 1645 to 1715 and was named after its discoverer, the astronomer Edward Walter Maunder, “Maunder Minimum”. Zharkova and her colleagues believe that the solar cycle of not only deep inside Sun is well founded. So, however, the previous assumption. There were close to the surface a second cycle, the researchers suggest. If the highlights of both cycles at the same time take place, they cancel each other out. This declining solar activity. According to the researcher’s predictions about 97 percent accurate.

Maybe Obama should be worried that his (prospective) grandchildren won’t be able to go bathing in the sea at Hawaii as it will be too cold.

The right direction is away from a global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

If we were clever and foolish enough to turn away, how low do we go? Two degrees Celsius below pre-industrial times? Is that the optimum range for people … p/m 2 degrees? Is that the optimum range for all living things? For all glaciers? For all sea levels? For the emergence of spring, annual hurricane energy, wildfire and drought occurrence?

And what if we operate in the optimum range, does everything thrive sustain-ably? Or do we get runaway sustainability? Better yet, how many of our grandchildren must we eliminate in order to keep this terraformed utopia operating within the control limits? Who gets to choose, do we vote?

Reblogged this on SiriusCoffee and commented:
Yes folks, you read that right. The key to curbing climate change is… more taxes!

Expanding the size and scope of government will save us all from ourselves. It’s almost like our hands hover over the BIG RED BUTTON and we’d press it if not constrained by the ever watchful hand of State.

Over on Judith Curry’s blog, ‘Turbulent Eddie’ offered an important observation about what portion of US carbon emissions are produced by the electric utilities:

Turbulent Eddie: We tend to forget about the rest of the sources of emissions. Electricity may be the largest single category, but it’s still less than half of the total. Heating,cooking,industrial, and transportation go into the total:

My response to ‘Turbulent Eddie’ went like this:

President Obama’s stated 2025, 2030, and 2050 emission reduction targets as applied to the above graph of United States CO2 emissions would produce these approximate numbers:

One estimate from recent Congressional testimony is that the Clean Power Plan falls roughly 40% short in achieving President Obama’s 2025 target for US carbon emission reductions.

That additional carbon has to come out of the 3.2 G-tonnes of Year 2013 C02 emissions which come from sources not associated with the production of electricity — transportation, chemical processing, etc.

We can play as many games as we might like to with alternative CO2 reduction strategies and alternative scenarios for the future mix of carbon and non-carbon energy resources.

But what it comes down to is that President Obama’s targets cannot be achieved without very significant and painful energy conservation measures.

The most effective and economically efficient way to enforce those energy conservation measures would be for the US Government to put a stiff price on carbon and to take actions which directly constrain the supply and availability of all carbon fuels.

If the overriding objective is to achieve President Obama’s emission reduction targets, regardless of any other considerations, it isn’t going to happen any other way.

The plan is an assault on prosperity. The opinion of someone who apparently does not understand the relation between mathematics and the physical world is worthless.

If you understand the relation between mathematics and the physical world, you understand that, for a forcing to have an effect, it must exist for a period of time and the effect of the forcing is calculated by its duration. If the forcing varies, (or not) the effect is determined by the time-integral of the forcing (or the time-integral of a function thereof).

The CO2 level has been above about 150 ppmv for at least the entire Phanerozoic eon (the last 542 million or so years). If CO2 was a forcing, its effect on average global temperature (AGT) would be calculated according to its time-integral (or the time-integral of a function thereof) for about 542 million years. Because there is no way for that calculation to consistently result in the current AGT, CO2 cannot be a forcing.

Well see, here’s the thing; I am almost attempted to agree with James on this . . . . then I realize, if you are agreeing with him, you are probably missing something important.

Say, for a moment you wanted to hamstring the U.S. economy as much as you possibly could, and knew your influence wouldn’t last beyond a certain period of time.

The policies proscribed by the Obama administration would be the best possible tool. It doesn’t require passage of either house of congress and, while it may be overturned by a later administration, it will continue to have a meaningful impact long after the decision is reversed, just because the resource development will never catch up to where it could have been. Huge opportunity costs.

If that were your goal, you wouldn’t call this useless. It’s just a matter of perspective. Hansen is a true believer in the greenfreak movement, while Obama is only a watermelon member; green on the outside, red on the inside. His policies always seem to lean to the side that damages America with respect to our competitiveness with the rest of the world. Always.

You can say all I have is correlation, but then, that’s all the alarmists have, really.